Читать книгу The Tanglewood Murders - David Weedmark - Страница 8
ОглавлениеIt had been a quiet summer morning in the warehouse. Ben Taylor had just finished repairing a loose conveyor belt on the tomato sorter in preparation for the day’s run when Randy Caines, the warehouse manager, arrived. Taylor was still on his knees beneath the steel rollers when Caines told him to hitch a wagon to the old Kubota tractor, empty the old pump-house, then tear it down.
“Get a move on,” Caines bellowed, pointing a meaty finger at Taylor. “I want that piece a shit torn down by the end of the day.”
“What for?” Taylor asked in surprise, crawling out from under the conveyor belt.
“In case ya didn’t notice,” Caines said, “it got hit by lightning.
Night before last. It’s a mess and it’s gonna take you most of the day to take it down.”
“No, no.” Taylor rose to his feet, shaking his head. “That thing’s mostly brick and stone. Even for two men, that’s a couple days work.”
Taylor towered above his turnip-shaped manager. He wiped the oil from his hands with an old rag he had found jammed under the sorter’s fuse box. Covered in grease and what appeared to be dried blood, the rag was still cleaner than his hands.
“Where the hell is Scotty then?” Caines demanded.
“I’ve no idea,” said Taylor, patting the dust from his jeans.
“Fine,” Caines snorted, turning to Juan Reger, who had just punched in and was sliding his time card back in its metal slot. “You’re late!” he shouted across the warehouse floor.
“Like hell,” said Juan, angling his thumb at the clock. “It’s still a minute to eight. I haven’t even started yet.”
Caines turned back to Taylor. “Take the kid with ya. It’ll do him good to try some real work for a change, instead of tinkering with his toolbox all friggin day long.”
Taylor grinned once Caines had turned away. After a week of steady drizzle, the prospect of working in the sunshine where the flowers were beginning to bloom was a welcome reprieve from another monotonous day inside, packing boxes and loading trucks with a forklift.
Juan was not nearly as pleased. He kicked the steel support of the conveyor belt with his torn running shoe. “I wanted to help with the bottling today,” he muttered.
Taylor grinned at his young friend. The bottling room was where the young girls Juan’s age would be working today.
“You’ll have more fun with me,” said Taylor. “It’s demolition work.”
“There aren’t any girls out there,” Juan said. “Just bugs and weeds.”
Taylor grinned. “Girls just get you in trouble anyway. Trust me on that, okay?”
Juan was still sullen after they’d finished hooking the wagon to the small Kubota tractor. His interests were limited to fixing machinery and girls. More precisely, he enjoyed taking machinery apart and trying, with limited success, to put it back together again.
As far as the girls went, he enjoyed watching them and doing things to try to get their attention, but did not yet have the confidence to have a genuine conversation with them. At the prospect of doing anything else, he reacted with undisguised boredom or contempt.
While Juan maintained that he was eighteen years old, Taylor figured sixteen was closer to the truth. Juan had come to work at Tanglewood Vineyards when his parents had signed him out of school a year ago, just a few months before Taylor had arrived. With blonde hair, blue eyes, and a Spanish first name, Juan was a German Mennonite whose parents had moved to Canada from the drought-ridden region of Chihuahua, Mexico, three years ago. His first name was Johann, but because he spoke Spanish so well, the Mexican workers on the farm had always called him Juan. He had happily adopted his Spanish name as an act of defiance to his father, who was the mechanic at the Weber farm a few miles down the road, and whose name was Johann as well.
Taylor piled two long chains into the wagon as Juan dropped a sledgehammer beside them.
“Why do we have to waste our time tearing that stupid thing down for?” Juan asked. “No one uses it.”
“Well,” Taylor began as he looked for more tools to load. “I guess it got hit by lightning the other night, so now they want it taken down.”
“I don’t remember any lightning,” said Juan.
“It was probably after you went to bed. It was late. Sunday night.”
Taylor remembered the storm. It had been the violent climax to a week of daily showers, as cool western winds fought with a warm front coming up from Lake Erie. Before the warm front finally prevailed, the first thunderstorm and tornado watch of the year were announced. There were no actual tornados reported, but the wind and rain had been violent at times, waking Taylor throughout the night with long swells of thunder stretching out from the south until they finally faded towards the east around three in the morning. Ben had heard of a few lightning strikes and some toppled tree branches in Thamesville and Ridgetown, but he hadn’t heard of any damage here.
The pump-house lay at the end of a narrow gravel laneway that separated the vineyard from a few dozen old apple trees. It had been constructed at least sixty years ago, at a time when both sides of the lane had been used for tobacco and when a river could still be trusted as a healthy source of irrigation. In recent years it had been used only to store irrigation pipes and a few supplies that came in handy when workers were this far from the winery and the warehouse. The pump-house was situated in a remote corner of the vineyard, hidden behind the small apple orchard. There was no reason for any of the workers to come by this area so early in the season. If it had been hit by lightning, it was doubtful anyone would have known for a day or two, unless they had seen the flames that night.
“So why make us take it down if it’s wrecked already?” Juan complained. “Doesn’t make any sense. Just let nature take its course, and it’ll all fall down anyway.”
“I imagine they’ll plant some more vines there, or a couple more apple trees. Besides, if the building is structurally unsound, they’ll want to make sure it’s down before some school kids sneak inside and have it collapse on them.”
“School kids would have to be pretty stupid to go into a shack that’s half-burned down and falling apart,” Juan said.
“Well, school kids aren’t as smart as us,” said Taylor, without realizing he had winked.
They loaded a couple of crowbars and a rusty hatchet onto the wagon.
“Did you ever like school?” Juan asked. As sullen as he tried to be, he was not comfortable with silence unless he was busy repairing equipment.
Taylor considered the question. He had graduated from university twelve years ago. Memories of high school had seemed to grow more fuzzy, but much warmer with each passing year.
“It was fun,” he answered finally.
“It’s boring,” the teenager said with a shrug. “My mom used to make me go. But they’d kick me out. And then they’d pull my Dad into the office to tell him how bad I was. And I’d get some time off and I’d go to work, which was what I wanted anyway. I hated it there.”
“You’ll have to finish high school if you want to get to college, you know.”
“I don’t see what good that does either. You used to work here when you were my age. And then you went to university, right? And now you’re back. If school is so great, why are you here with me?
Right back where you started from.”
“You can’t gauge your life by what you think other people are doing,” Taylor said, staring at the youth with all the seriousness he could muster. “You’re good with machinery, you know. With a little education or an apprenticeship, you could get yourself a good job. There’s more to life than working for farm minimum wage, you know.”
“I like farms,” Juan replied. “It’s better than working in a factory.
Besides, I want to go back to Mexico one day and work on my own farm.”
“But with an education…”
“I don’t care about an education. And if an education is really so great and working on a farm is really so bad, what are you doing here?”
Taylor paused for a moment before answering. Of course he could not tell his young friend the truth, but he wondered for a moment how it would sound to any ears but his own: You see, I killed someone.
A boy. It was an accident, but I took his life away, and knowing what I did took all the life from inside of me as well. I came here to escape the silence it filled me with, so I could work my body to exhaustion and so I could sleep again through the nights…
Taylor shook his head. “I like it here too,” he said. “But don’t expect me to be here for long. I have another life, you know. Some people take cruises. Some people go to Florida for a few months. I just wanted to get out of the city and get away from the stress for a while. And with an education, I can go back anytime I want. And that’s the point.”
“But we’re both here the same. I like it here better than school, but I didn’t have to go to classes to get here. That’s my point.”
Juan beamed at himself, clearly proud of his reasoning. He glanced up at Taylor’s face to see if he had succeeded in irritating the older man.
“If we’re both the same,” said Taylor, “why is it I’m driving the tractor and you’re standing in the back?”
This wiped the smile from Juan’s face. He fished a pack of Black Cats from the pocket of his plaid shirt and lit a cigarette with a wooden match. He lumbered onto the back of the tractor, standing on the hitch that joined the wagon and holding onto the back of Taylor’s seat.
“All set. Let’s go!”
Taylor started up the engine, and the old tractor bucked and groaned to life. The exhaust pipe rattled and spewed a blue cloud of diesel smoke which lingered in the still air. As he eased the tractor into gear, Taylor stood in his seat to avoid the cloud of smoke until he had passed through it.
Emerging from the shadow of the warehouse, Taylor immediately felt the soft caress of the morning sun on his back. He was looking forward to taking off his shirt soon. He longed to feel the full weight of the sun on his skin.
Juan was soon grumbling and battling his grip on the seat as the tractor crossed the first series of ruts and potholes in the dirt path. Taylor decided to take it easy on Juan and drove slowly in second gear between the blossoming grape vines as he edged his way towards the river. He savoured the smell of the wet grass, and even the smell of the diesel exhaust mingling with the smoke from his cigarette, which he held between two fingers on the top of the steering wheel.
As he rounded into the clearing and the river came into view, Taylor could smell the green stagnant water and the lingering odour of dead fish that seemed to always follow a long, hard rain. The river odours soon began to blend with the smell of charred wood and wet ashes as they neared the pump-house.
And then another smell took him by surprise. Taylor tossed his cigarette aside to let it sizzle out in the damp grass. He took the tractor out of gear, denied the engine fuel, and turned off the engine. He stood in his seat to avoid the last gasp of exhaust fumes as he listened through the sudden silence that lingered in the eerily still morning air.
“Don’t move,” he said to Juan.
Taylor inhaled deeply through his nose a second time. As soon as he filled his lungs, he grimaced with the realization of what he had just breathed in. Thick and acrid, it stung his nose and throat.
He knew this sickly, familiar smell all too well. It was already deep in his lungs, in his own body. Mingling with the odour of burnt lumber was the stench of charred human flesh.
Already Taylor’s thoughts were on Anna Wagner, the young girl who had disappeared the week before. He turned his head away, exhaling forcefully to get it out of his body, but it was too late.
The odour was deep inside him now. His stomach clenched as he brought his hand to his mouth and started to cough—a deep hack that brought the blood to his head and made his sides ache with the strain.
Juan had already scrambled down from the wagon hitch and was walking towards the old pump-house a dozen yards away. He stopped and spun around, stepping back towards the tractor, covering his nose with his shirt collar.
“Gawd! It reeks!” he shouted. “What is it?”
Taylor wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his plaid shirt. “I told you to stay back, Juan.”
The sullen teen stepped behind the tractor. “Shit,” he groaned.
Taylor sat back in his seat, taking deep, measured breaths. The smell coming from the pump-house left little doubt as to what was inside, but as long as he stayed on the tractor and didn’t approach any closer, he could hold onto the last flake of hope for a few more seconds. He could hope he was wrong, that it was some dead animal inside. As the seconds quickly passed, however, his hope could not last against the certainty of what was waiting for him inside the blackened pump-house.
Taylor glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. Only a few minutes ago, it had promised to be a beautiful day. Much more than just the day had been shattered, Taylor was certain of that. He directed his gaze to the riverbank where the willows, pines and poplars framed a small patch of goldenrod and purple liatris. A large crow was perched on the branch of a nearby maple. It crowed once with a deep, guttural squawk. Black, with a purple sheen in the sunlight, it looked too large to be a crow as it rose into the air and soared behind the more distant trees. A raven, perhaps. Taylor watched the slow, easy movement of the water reflecting the green of the trees on either bank. He wanted to look at anything, simply anything, but this burnt-out shack.
The building had been constructed, it seemed, with little or no planning. It was less than ten feet high and about the size and shape of a single car garage. The thin beams of the flat roof had begun to sag some time ago under the weight of at least a half dozen layers of asphalt shingles. Composed of mostly red brick, shorter brown bricks appeared near the top of the south and east walls, where someone had evidently run out of supplies. Several fieldstones and rough mortar had been used above the doorframe, giving it a rustic look. These would have been used out of convenience or necessity rather than for esthetics. Most probably, the builders had run out of bricks. Fieldstones, a farmer’s curse, which worked their way up through the soil with every spring thaw, were always in plentiful supply.
Taylor noticed the frame around the single broken window was black and charred, as were the edges of the shed’s only door. The red bricks near the window and door were blackened as well. The door itself, however, was quite intact. Looking closer, he saw about half of the sagging roof had now completely collapsed. He focused on the ground and now saw the shards of glass that littered the gravel. There was another odour here too, just below the surface of wet ashes and human flesh. He should have recognized it before. Gasoline.
“What is it?” asked Juan.
“Just step back for a minute.”
Juan did as he was told at first, but as Taylor approached the doorway, the youth was soon crowding him. His hands were on Taylor’s back, peering at the doorway from behind Taylor’s arm.
“Maybe a raccoon died in there?” said Juan.
Taylor said nothing, motioning to Juan to step back. Dead raccoons and squirrels the teenager was used to, but not this smell.
“Or maybe a stray cat?” Juan offered.
“We’ll see soon enough.” Taylor pulled the ball cap from his head and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
They approached the small brick shed. Fallen shingles, fallen metal shelves and several wooden crates filled with rusted tools were blocking the window, preventing him from getting a good look inside. The door was padlocked shut.
“Do you know anything about this lock?” Taylor asked. “Or who has the key?”
“No,” said Juan. “But I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be locked.
The Mexicans used to sneak in here to sleep when no one was watching.”
“Hand me a wrecking bar.”
Juan hurried over with a crowbar. Taylor wedged the end of the bar under the rusty latch. After a couple of quick tugs, the latch came free from the door. As he opened the door, the hinges squealed like nails being pulled from green wood, making Juan wince. A dozen or so steel irrigation pipes, each six inches thick and eight to twelve feet long, had fallen from their racks on the wall and were now blocking their way inside.
Warm, moist air wafted from the open doorway. The stench was now much worse. The smell of gasoline was stronger too. Because of the pipes blocking the doorway, Taylor could not get his head far enough into the doorway to see what exactly awaited them inside.
“This can’t be good,” said Taylor. “But let’s get at it.”
They made short work of the pipes, moving them onto the trailer quickly, silently. Juan tried his best to keep the collar of his t-shirt over his mouth and nose, handling the far end of each pipe to keep as far from the doorway as he could. Inside, beyond the pipes, flecks of gold buzzed and swarmed, illuminated by the large hole in the roof of the shed. Taylor had only to take a couple of steps inside before he could see what awaited him in the far corner of the shack, behind a stack of charred crates, covered by fallen shingles. Blow flies, with sheens of silver and gold, buzzed frantically, creating a morbid halo above the charred remains of Anna Wagner.
Taylor motioned Juan away. Flies swarmed around Taylor’s face as he stepped further into the shed. His skin crawled.
“Gawd, it reeks,” Juan whispered behind him. “What is it?”
Taylor gave the youth a sharp look. “Get to a phone. Call the police.”
Juan’s eyes widened as he pressed forward. “Let me see.”
“You don’t need to see this.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Juan.” Taylor leaned forward. “Juan. Call. The. Police.”
The boy tried to crane his neck over Taylor’s shoulder. Whatever sense of fear and revulsion Juan had been feeling a moment ago was now eclipsed by an intense curiosity.
“You go call the police,” Juan snapped. “You’re not the boss of me. I wanna see.”
Taylor was an inch over six feet tall, with a solid, muscular build.
The boy was not going to move him. Eagerly, Juan moved towards the doorway. With one hand, Taylor grasped the teenager’s shoulder and held him back from the doorway.
“You can’t go inside. Call the police. Tell them we’ve found Anna.”
Juan’s shoulder slumped in Taylor’s grasp, and he stopped pressing forward. He looked up at Taylor with shock, like he had just been punched in the stomach.
“It’s her, Juan. Now please call the police.”
Juan nodded, but his feet were not moving. His arms were limp at his sides, and his gaze was fixed on the darkened doorway ahead of him.
“But she ran away to Mexico,” Juan whispered. “Everyone said she ran away.”
“I know what they said. But she’s not in Mexico, Juan. You have to call the police.”
Juan took a deep breath, as if preparing himself to go back to the tractor, but lurched forward instead with a speed that caught Taylor by surprise. By the time Taylor had his hands on the boy again, Juan had already gained entry to the shack. He did not take more than a step or two inside before he stopped on his own, gasping at the sight inside.
Quickly, Taylor slipped his arm around Juan’s waist to prevent him from advancing any farther. His aim for the moment was not to drag the boy out, but to just hold him in place. Juan would leave easily enough in a few seconds, and Taylor could not let a scuffle disturb this crime scene more than they already had by trying to clear the doorway a few minutes ago.
“You’ve seen her,” Taylor said calmly. “Now give her some respect, and let’s go back outside.”
He gently pulled Juan back into the sunlight and, positioning himself between Juan and the doorway, he loosened his grip on the boy.
Juan gasped once more and began to run towards the tractor, bent forward, one hand on his mouth, the other on his stomach.
His legs bent like rubber in his long strides before he fell forward onto his hands and knees. In the tall weeds alongside the shed, he began to spasm and vomit.
Taylor gave him a minute before approaching. Juan was on his hands and knees, fighting for breath. He looked up at Taylor with wide, mournful eyes. Behind his own calm expression, Taylor was burning with rage. He was pissed with himself for letting Juan catch him off-guard as he had, for not protecting him from the sight inside, and for not protecting Anna Wagner from Juan’s morbid curiosity.
“Feeling better?” Taylor asked, without showing a trace of his pity for the kid and the harsh lesson he had just learned.
Juan looked up, wiping his mouth. His face was pale. He looked now to be only ten years old.
“Want another peek?” Taylor asked.
Juan shook his head as he climbed to his feet.
“I tried to tell you. But now you know. So get to a phone. Call 911. Get the police here. Don’t talk to anyone else on the way to the phone.”
Taylor patted his shoulder. “Do it now, Juan.”
Juan nodded and turned away. He began to run.
“Save your legs. Stop. Save your legs. Take the tractor.”
Juan stumbled back and tried to start the tractor.
“Give it some fuel.”
The boy nodded absently and opened the fuel line. The Kubota fired up and hitched as he popped the clutch, steering it around in a tight circle, before bouncing off in high gear between the rows of grapevines and the early blossoming apple trees towards the main warehouse. The right tire hit a deep rut on the side of the laneway, and several tools bounced and fell from the wagon.
Taylor looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after nine. It might take at least a half hour for the police to arrive. As he turned back towards the shed, he recognized in himself the warning signs of shock.
This isn’t the same. Isn’t the same at all, the echo of a detached voice said to him. Don’t go numb. Compose yourself.
He let his legs take him towards the water. The dams downstream had not been opened enough for the rain that had come down in the last several days. The river was full, brown and slow. A large branch, still clad in green maple leaves, floated near the shore, barely moving in the swell, looking to Taylor like another body face down in the water. He closed his eyes and for a moment was only aware of the sun, now too hot on the back of his flannel shirt, and the feel of his wet shoes and the wet cuffs of his jeans from the dew on the tall weeds. He opened his eyes and took another step towards the river, but the tranquil scene was marred by the knowledge of what lay behind him. A loud buzzing insect released a steady high-pitched tone from the trees. Fifteen years ago, Taylor would have known its name. An early cicada, perhaps, he thought vaguely.
He rubbed his eyes and walked back to the pump-house, looking at every detail, from the sprinkles of broken glass mixed in with the gravel, to the scorched bricks and mortar around the window and door. There were no discernable footsteps in the dry mud surrounding the doorway. The rain would have washed them away several times over by now. No matches visible, no cigarette butts or weapons. No monogrammed handkerchiefs left behind by a masked villain.
Taylor rolled his eyes at his ridiculous thoughts and circled around the shed before approaching the doorway.
Careful not to touch anything, he stepped inside. Flies buzzed and swarmed around his face, and Taylor became conscious again that he was breathing death into his lungs. He took light, shallow breaths, feeling particles of her corpse entering his body with every breath. He swallowed hard several times as the reflex to retch came over him. A ruptured metal gas tank, visible beneath the fallen shingles and plywood, lay on the floor near the far wall. The red and yellow lettering was still legible on its side, but the metal was torn and blackened where the burning fuel had kicked its way out.
In the corner, he could see a pile of clothes. There were the remnants of a yellow dress with a pattern of blue wildflowers, singed from the fire and wet from the rain. Two white canvas tennis shoes, one singed and melted, the other untouched, lay lopsided on the dress. Protruding from the bottom of the pile of clothing was the edge of a cotton bra that had once been white but was now brown from the fire.
Against the wall were more six-inch irrigation pipes, each about ten feet long, stacked horizontally on metal shelves. Next to the pipe were several wooden pop bottle crates containing several dozen steel and aluminum connectors; shorter pipes with clamps, each about ten inches long. A rusty red toolbox sat unopened beside the crates.
Only when Taylor was certain he had taken in every other detail in the shed did he finally turn his focus towards Anna’s body. He took another breath. She was naked, black, grey and white, her burned face staring up from the metal cot. The cot, he imagined, had been used over the years by workers while they waited to move irrigation pipes or just needed to hide from the boss. Her hands were above her head, held by heavy handcuffs now blue and black from the heat of the fire. Her legs were spread open, nylon rope melted into the flesh of her ankles. He could smell the residue of gasoline most strongly from her body now. Several flies still swarmed her mouth and nose, lighting on her open eyes, but there were no maggots visible. Taylor had no desire to look more closely. She had not been dead for much more than two days. Her torso was burned badly, but her face and limbs still recognizable. Her neck had been cut ruthlessly. Most of her hair had been charred. Her mouth was open.
She must have died screaming, he thought as he took another step forward. No, something was in her mouth. A cloth had been pressed deep in her mouth. He pulled his utility knife from his back pocket and prodded lightly at the cloth. White cotton panties with pink flowers, singed by the flames.
Taylor put his knife back in his pocket, careful now to keep his eyes away from her face. The human mind cannot accept chaos. It will play tricks on you, trying to rearrange the details it is seeing into something it can make sense of. Lifeless open eyes seem to blink. Lifeless lips seem to smile then to sneer. It was hard enough when it was a stranger’s body you were looking at, when you could detach yourself from the knowledge that the body before you was once a living, animated person. It was nearly impossible, however, when it was someone you knew. Taylor blinked his eyes, again and again, trying to keep his mind focused, and looked around the shed once more.
It was shoddy work, he decided. He looked at the hole in the roof, at the broken glass of the window. More flies, buzzing loudly, lighted on his shoulders, his face and his ears. As he stepped back towards the door, he noticed an old hammer on the floor in the corner, rusted, the wooden handle scorched and split down the centre. Beside it was a small sickle about six inches long with a foot long handle. Taylor crouched down and looked for blood on the hammer and on the rusty serrated blade. There was none. He surveyed the room again, memorizing every aspect of her body and the items surrounding her.
Finally, he let his eyes pass over her face one last time: the mouth open in a silent scream; the disfigured bulging eyes staring at him; and the flies, the endless flies climbing over the once beautiful face. He turned his head away before his feet could move again. Once outside, he leaned against one of the apple trees until his head cleared. He let himself fall against the tree, sitting with his back against the rough trunk, and closed his eyes to the leaves and the blue sky above.
Taylor opened his eyes and looked down the orchard for any sign of Juan. How long, he wondered, would it take the boy to find a phone to call the police. How long before this crime scene became a circus of police, reporters and farm workers? He thought of heading towards the warehouse himself, just to be sure Juan had made the call he was supposed to make, but he fought that reaction. It was best to let the urges come and go as his mind tried to fight the memories of Anna as she had been, of Anna as her body was now. Memories of her blonde hair flashed before him now, so beautiful when she was alive.
Anna Wagner was only eighteen years old. She had disappeared ten days ago. Her boyfriend, David Quiring, was also missing, and the Andover Police, after a three-day investigation, had decided that the two had run away together, either to Mexico, based on what his family had said, or to Alberta, based on what her few friends had said. Anna’s father, Abe Wagner, had rejected this theory, adamant that his daughter would never leave without telling him, but his protests to the police had gone largely ignored. Whether she had run away with her boyfriend or not, Abe Wagner wanted her home. To this end, Michael Voracci, Wagner’s employer and the owner of Tanglewood Vineyards, had posted a five thousand dollar reward for information leading to her safe return.
One of the last times Taylor had seen her, she had been having lunch outside at a picnic table on a sunny day much like today. She had smiled and waved as he walked by. He could still hear her voice, see her smile and her expressive blue eyes. She was such a beautiful, carefree soul, one of those girls who could have been sixteen or twenty-five depending on the expression on her face. He could hear her laugh now. Taylor dug his heels into the ground as the sound of her laughter turned into a sob then a muffled scream.
Again, he fought the urge to get up, to go to the warehouse, to find out what had become of Juan. He needed to be here, to protect the crime scene, in case Juan returned with some curious workers before the police arrived.
For a moment, he considered covering her naked body with his flannel shirt. But these emotions pass, he reminded himself. It was best just to sit here against the tree. He had seen enough. There was nothing he could do to help her now except to ensure no one else went inside before the police arrived. He clenched his jaw when he remembered how easily Juan had stepped past him to get inside to satisfy his morbid curiosity. What had he been thinking of, letting down his guard like that? Perhaps he had been here too long. Perhaps he had spent so much effort trying to convince himself that he was just another farm hand that he had actually come to believe it.
Taylor shook his head with a surge of self-disgust. What had he been thinking of, coming here, trying to convince himself that he was something he was not? Just two nights before—the night of the thunderstorm in fact—he had been thinking of quitting this job and returning home to Ottawa, thinking of putting the pieces of his own life back together, and finally leaving this fantasy of a simpler life behind. Why had he not come to his senses a few weeks earlier, he demanded of himself now, when he could have done something to help Anna before it was too late?
He knew the answer to this, of course. He had fallen in love and had become too busy trying to find a new place for himself in an old, over-used fairy tale—the white knight trying to save the damsel from a tower of her own making. Dammit, Ben. So he had entrusted Anna’s fate to the local police—men, it turned out, who had put less thought into her case than they did trying to decide what to order for lunch.
When Taylor had told the Andover Police Chief, Tom McGrath, that he did not think Anna was the kind of girl to run out on her father without saying a word, McGrath had scoffed at him.
“And who are you again?” McGrath had asked, amused. “These Mexican Mennonites, they’re just like the migrant workers. They float from place to place. In fact, they’re worse than the Mexicans because they don’t carry any papers. They’re just blonde-haired, drug-selling gypsies.” McGrath had grinned at him, the sun reflecting from his sunglasses into Taylor’s eyes. “Don’t worry. Her dad will get a postcard from her in a few weeks. Just you see.”
Taylor understood well enough the prejudice against the farm workers. Tanglewood Vineyards employed over a dozen migrants from Mexico and sixteen Mennonites, most from Mexico, one family from Alberta, and Anna and her father who came from Argentina. To everyone in town they were all from Mexico. They lived the same simple lifestyle. The men were all thin, and all seemed to wear the same cheap brands of fertilizer caps. The women all wore handmade dresses, black shoes, white socks, and handkerchiefs tied over their hair. They lived and worked in a world of their own, apart from anyone who lived in town. There was nothing Taylor could say to McGrath to dispel a lifetime of prejudice. Many of them in town dealt in drugs, yes, but not the ones who worked twelve to sixteen hours a day on the farms, and certainly not Anna, or her father. There was nothing Taylor could say to show McGrath that Anna Wagner deserved as much respect as any girl from town.
He closed his eyes, and saw her face again, burned. Silently screaming, staring at him.
Help me, she seemed to say. You found me. I’m inside you now.
You breathed my body into yours. You denied me before, but you can’t deny me now. You are responsible.
Taylor closed his eyes. There was no escape from this voice. There was no escape from these thoughts. He knew that all too well.
You are responsible.
